POS On Steroids

PCI Is Serious Stuff

   

A group of restaurants in Louisiana and Mississippi have filed a class action suit against Radiant (ALOHA) and their local dealer for selling non PCI compliant versions of ALOHA POS software and compounding their negligence by assigning the same generic user-name and password to 200 restaurant installations of PC-Anywhere thereby facilitating the foreign hacking of restaurant customer credit card numbers for which the restaurants have been held responsible -  

PCI compliance is serious - at a time when identity thief runs rampant - why should the criminal bother with lifting a diner's wallet for an AMEX card when the restaurant's computer may hold thousands of credit card numbers - 

Everyone's heard about data breaches at TJ Maxx where an "unauthorized intrusion" resulted in the loss of 45,700,000 credit and debit card account numbers - and - Credit Card Processor RBS who was hacked for 1.1 million Social Security numbers - but many restaurant owners brush off the warnings - "they go after the big guys" - failing to upgrade their POS systems - bringing them into PCI compliance - 

Visa - Mastercard - American Express are too often painted as the enemy - not waiting for their client/restaurants to be hacked - imposing fines that can reach $100,000 for failure to comply - even $50,000 for failing to fill out the paper work - collecting is simple - pay up (they have the bank information) or loose the ability to let customer use credit cards - 

Cruel ?? - Heartless ?? - Out of control Credit Card Police ?? - Necessary !!!

Why rob a bank - where the average take is $5,000 - when hacking Mel's Diner from a foreign country (no chance of getting shot by a bank guard) - yielded $30,000 from just 19 of the 699 cards numbers stolen - the whole episode costing restaurant owner - Keith Bond - $50,000 - out-of-pocket - 

Unless you as a restauranteur can afford to take a similar (or greater) hit - take PCI compliance seriously - 

Restaurants Sue Vendor For Unsecured Card Processor - Kim Zetter - Wired - 113009

Plaintiff's Court Filing

Apple Changes POS World

While visitors to Apple's newest store on New York's UWS will marvel at the architecture, the real tour d'force rests on the hips of every red tee shirted sales associate walking the floor. Its a holstered iTouch which can be used to complete any sales transaction. Gone are the bulky Symbol units with their snap on mag card readers that drove Steve Job's design genes crazy. No more "I can handle your transaction if (1) its a credit card sale and (2) its OK to email you your receipt". The modified iTouch (iPhone without cellular capability) can scan the bar code on the item to be purchased, allow the sales associate enter all relevant data via touch screen, swipe the credit card with the Mag Card reader that has been ergonomically snapped onto the back of the unit, print a receipt via IP to any number of check printers placed strategically throughout the store or even open an IP cash drawer is the customer wants to pay cash. And the whole thing fits neatly into ones hand. 

POS Breakthrough Revolutionizes Order Processing

 
 

IR "Painters" Defeat Cognac Thief

My contribution to an Accubar discussion requesting "favorite stories of bar abuses"

First week's manual inventory indicated a shortage of expensive Cognac - charged off to human error - 

Second week's manual inventory indicated more shortages of expensive Cognacs (plural) - suspicions raised - 

Third week's manual inventory indicated continuing losses - finally - Houston we have a problem - 

A review of video showed the lights in the restaurant and bar going out at 4:00 AM - followed by a shadowy figure moving across the room - it stops behind the bar for 5 minutes or so - then retraces the route and exits the room - 

While everyone had their own favorite suspect - turning off the lights - creating total darkness - defeated the Video Surveillance System's IR Cameras - you could see that there was a drinker - but - the drinker was unidentifiable - what to do - 

Technology to the rescue - we added two IR "Painters" - stand-alone devices that bathed (flooded) the room in massive amounts of invisible IR light - the video now looked like it was shot in daylight - the Cognac "thief" was immediately ID'd - gone the next day - 

While the time consuming and manpower intensive manual system ultimately flagged the problem - it took three weeks before escalation - during which the losses continued - while a higher tech lower-cost-per-cycle method - like Accubar - would have prompted immediate action - curtaining the losses -

Take Back The Beep

Missed the first round - but check out update of David Pogues's Post - Take Back The Beep Campaign - to have cell phone companies remove or make optional the blah-blah-blah instructions every time you leave a message on someone's voice mail - 

The initial effort appears to be having an effect - time to accelerate the pressure - 

iPhone Virus

Apple's response to a memory eating virus targeting the iPhone is update 3.0.1

Connect the iPhone to iTunes ....
Download & install 3.0.1 ...

Linguine In The CPU

The DVR (Digital Video Recorder) Server froze. Attempts by the video-tech to restart the PC hosting the DVR card sent Windows into a continuous non-booting loop. The diagnosis was, "Its he PC."

Escalated, the PC-tech (on-site visit) immediately found the errant Virus Protection Software that had crashed the DVR; though the same endless reboot continued after reset and repeated restarts. Checking the computer's Vitals revealed the CPU (Central PRocessing Unit) was running at twice its optimal operating temperature i.e. it was overheating its way to catastrophic failure or worse ... ignition and subsequent fire.

Taken down from its perch on a shelf inches below the ceiling over the Chef's unenclosed kitchen office, the Server was opened up for a "look-see." Everything inside was covered in an unidentifiable yellow powder ... imagine pulverized linguine.

What can best be described as "kitchen-muck" was on every blade of the heat-sink. The fan mounted directly atop the CPU was 100% clogged. There was simple no cooling inside the case.

Disassembling the entire unit, the PC was repeatedly "blown-out" with compressed air until the we could again see the motherboard's blue backing.  Concerned about arcing, special pains were taken to clean out the dust on, in and around the CPU saddle. Every card was re-seated.

Powered up, the unit instantly failed (again) as the Power Supply fried under its full and proper load. The rescue and repair had not been soon enough.

It took two more days for a new Power Supply to arrive. Once installed, the Server and Windows booted-up smoothly and correctly. Reset and restarted (again), the DVR resumed recording.

Restaurant kitchens are brutal environments. Most chef's have a porter wipe down every kitchen surface, every night, to clean off visible and invisible food stuffs before they build-up and create health violations or operational hazards. 

A computer, prep printer, telephone, fax or even an unused data socket in the kitchen should be treated no differently. Airborne grease and foreign matter that build-up on equipments' outside surfaces has to be regularly cleaned off. One should expect "kitchen-muck" to find its way inside every opening ... no matter how small.

While a DVR is not "mission critical"; the POS Server is a "single point of failure." Shut down during service would disrupt order processing and could seriously impact revenue. Component failure and replacement is expensive.

Placing a dedicated prep-printer next to the grill station will greatly increase productivity. Not wiping it down on a regular basis will eventually cause the mechanical cutter and printer head to stop functioning. The help desk call is usually, "why is everything printing on one line."

A simple piece of duct tape over an unused phone/data socket will keep the hair-thin wire contacts clean, avoiding a service call to "scoop out" accumulated grease or even replacement of the outlet when connectivity is needed. 

Protect the technology. If the computer or other electronic equipment must be located in the kitchen, a few dollars for PM (Preventative Maintenance) by your IT support can go a long ways towards preventing failures that can cost real dollars and lost opportunity. 

Crash Test

Virginia Hefferman's excellent personal account in Sunday's NYT Magazine - 061409 - The Great Crash - reminds us that there are two types of computer owners -   

• Those who's hard drives have failed - 
• Those who's hard drives have not failed yet - 

Escalating the data recovery effort to a "clean room" in California - ($2,700 if they had been successful) - proved futile - Ms. Hefferman lost everything - 

For sure - rebuilding her files was "painfully" time consuming - but - she's a writer - the crash did not put out-of-business - 

Could your restaurant survive a similar ordeal ? - 

RFID: Coming To A Bistro Near You

The SANTE Magazine Behind The Bar article, RFID: Coming To The Bistro Near You (H. Buff Herr), looks at Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and its potential impact on the restaurant industry. Economies of scale are moving the vision of a UPC encoded RFID chip embedded in every barcode label on every bottle of beer and whiskey from sci-fi fantasy to practical reality ... watch it happen or become a participant.

Is Your Technology Skillfully Stirred Or Randomly Shaken ?

The SANTE Magazine article, Is Your Technology Skillfully Stirred Or Randomly Shaken? (H. Buff Herr), discusses why 21st century restauranteurs ... must embrace technology to enhance their success and improve the bottom line.